Fourth Annual meeting

at Milan, EAISC Meeting September 22 and 23, 2014

Minutes

Participants:

• Aleksandra Jaskólska, Warsaw Dennis De, Reutlingen
• Dipti Pandya, Dublin
• Donatella Dolcini, Milan
• Ester Zwinkels, Leiden
• Uwe Skoda, Aarhus
• Shazia Wülbers, Bremen
• Corinne Ghorbani, Bremen
• Maria Angelillo and Monica Sinbaldi, both Milan

Agenda:

1. Common Research Projects and Calls (i.e. Strategic Partnerships under Erasmus+; Marie-Curie-Programme)
2. Website
3. Newsletter
4. New Members
5. New Presidency; Next Meeting
6. Miscellaneous
7. Summary/Close

1. Common Research Projects and Calls

A – Strategic Partnerships/Key Action 2 (Erasmus+)
The programme shows a need in MA programmes (politics, economics and soft skills- oriented).
It is primarily designed for EU universities. India universities can be included as partners (partner countries). This does not constitute any key component but an added value to the project.

Arguments/relevance of the call for the Association in case of application:

• • India is underrepresented in higher education;
  • MA programmes with India focus offered on national level hardly “survive” (see Göttingen);
  • India-EU partnerships available (some members do run very intensive programmes with individual Indian universities + common Indian partners from the IBIES project)
    NB: not all of them should take part in the application.
  • The call does not specify any topic. The application should specify potential topics, courses, modules to be developed.

One important point of the call is the employability. Contacts to Chambers of Commerce, NGOs etc. are very important.

Goals of the application for the Association:

1. • First develop a transdisciplinary course across the disciplines offered among the members (i.e. develop a Summer/Winter School focused on India with location in Europe.)
     On the long term develop a joint MA programme. Title suggestion: Contemporary India. (Similarity to the application Bremen/Warsaw by the DAAD in early 2014. Bremen will send the application to all other members for information purposes.)

Budgeting (as part of the application): the admin staff should be included in the budget plan (training sessions, meetings etc.). This has not been done in the Erasmus Mundus application and criticised by the EU.
The budget plan is to be discussed at the Pondicherry meeting late February 2015.

Call deadline: 30. April 2015

The Association members are asked to:

• • indicate their participation in the application or not.
  • indicate their foci of research/teaching (in case of participation).

B – Innovative Training Networks (ITN) under Marie-Curie Actions

• • Emphasis on employability. Funds for full doctorates
  • A potential application should focus on European Training Networks (ETN) since European Industrial Doctorates (EID) is difficult to realise by the field of humanities.
  • Applicants: min. 3 beneficiaries + min. 3 Member States (MS) or Association Countries (AC) (i.e. India)
  • Procedure: Doctoral topic to be defined in India, research to be done in the EU
    (similar to IBIES)
  • The criterion “interdisciplinary” is fulfilled by the Association.
  • Need for SME, museums in case of historians, i.e.
  • The objective [train highly-skilled researchers and stimulating entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation in Europe] has to be fulfilled.

In case of application by the/some members of the Association,

• • The application red lines should be 1) train students to be fit for the Indo-EU relations and business, 2) create knowledge on India.
  • Before applying a survey on the needs of such research projects in the EU should be carried out, the results being the basis of the argumentation for the application.
  • Need for an argument to convince why India is important has to be defined.

Call feasible for Warsaw and Leiden; not for Reutlingen and Bremen.

2. Website

The structure of the website will be modified as follows.

Front page
Welcome (already written by Dennis!) - Genesis (see Warsaw’s website)
Logos of Association and all members
Boxes
1) Network
- EU Members + Staff of each member institution - Indian Partners
- Charter
- Newsletters
- How to join us?

Link to each India Study Centre/Institute
2) Academic Diversity
- Fields of research/teaching - Working papers
- Lectures/seminars (videos)
3) Projects
- IESCP - IBIES
Link Link
4) Events
- Meetings (minutes + photo gallery)
5) Experiences
- Scholars‘ stories
6) Contact
- Members

Sasi is in charge of elaborating the new template according to the structure above. Corinne will send him all necessary information.
Consequently, all members are kindly asked to send the logo of their institution + the staff of their institute/India Study Centre (incl. contact data, picture?) to Corinne.

3. Newsletter
This topic has to be postponed.
Shazia will send the newsletter draft by email to all members for amendments and comments.

4. New members
Dublin, represented by Dipti, was elected unanimously as a new member of AEISC.

General remarks:

• • Aix was unable to attend the meeting in Milan (term start in Aix) but should be invited to the next meeting in Leiden.
  • The Association should not count too many players (management problems);
  • The goals of the enlargement should be first defined;
  • The University College Cork opened a School of Asian Studies in 2011. It is to launch the ISCC (India Study Centre Cork) in February 2015. UCC already offers India-related workshops, cultural events, lectures and conferences focusing on humanities, anthropology and religion.
  • Further members should be invited to take part in the meeting in Leiden. They should present themselves and explain the benefits for them to be a member of our Association. Smaller countries could have a positive effect on applications for funds (i.e. new EU member states). First the following universities are mentioned: Vilnius, Leuven and Gothenburg.
  • On the long run the Association may need funds. Source? Sponsors?

 

5. New Presidency 2015/Next Meeting 2015
Leiden was unanimously elected as the new President. It takes over the presidency of the association for the duration of one year as of October 1, 2014.
The next EAISC meeting will take place in Pondicherry two days before the IBIES meeting planned for February 27 and 28, 2015. Dublin should take part in the discussions via Skype. Main topic of the meeting: application for Strategic Partnerships/Key Action 2 under Erasmus+ (i.e. budget planning).
In general the presidency will be allocated by order of membership.

6. Miscellaneous/Close

• • Sasnet offers to have our news on their website. Shazia suggests to write small texts for this purpose and to send them to Sasnet for online publication. Aim: make us know in the South-Asian Community.
  • Shazia suggests the organisation of a workshop on India-EU relations for next spring term based on a BA or MA thesis by the Association members. For this an excellent thesis has to be converted into a working paper as base of the workshop. Questions (among others): which member is going to lead the organisation of the workshop? Which member is going to finance the workshop?
  • Ola mentions the call “EU Culture and Diplomacy” with deadline in May 2015. Warsaw has already been preparing the application with a focus on China-South Korea. Nevertheless it is possible to include India. Ola will send more information to all members.
  • Uwe mentions the EU-programme starting in October called “Equip?” for Social Sciences and Humanities.
  • Dennis mentions that Reutlingen is going to launched the very first Double Degree with China.
  • Monica (Milan) announces the coming Erasmus+ programme for Asia which may be a more appropriate call for the objectives of the Association.

Further steps to be undertaken by the Association members:

• • Determine a road map for the activities on the medium and long term (memberships, sponsors etc.);
  • Members should think about organising a school (autumn, summer, winter school) with a duration of 2 to 3 days. Content: no soft skills, but history, politics of India etc. + cultural background. The School should be offered to companies to train their executives for India (how to do business with India).